Actually, they do use the size function.
FYI, this only stops the pages from specifying the size, but it doesn't really fix the problem. When you take this out the avatars can be ANY size, which isn't good.
The solution here would be to change the getimagesize function (when I find it) and alter it to work properly.
I have a mod that did this properly and I can probably port the code pretty easily if I can find how/where to make the changes.
Fred